In the title I refer to John Neely Kennedy, the Republican senator for the state of Louisiana, in the United States. The nickname was given to her by an opinion column in the Washington Post newspaper, on December 2, 2019. Yes, Neely Kennedy has been earning this label for several years now.
History attributes the term, “Useful Idiot” to Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov Lenin, the Russian communist who referred to the liberal Americans who, at the beginning of the last century, traveled to troubled Russia to help him establish a country. communist, and thus became instruments of their revolution, their lies and their propaganda.
The senator from Louisiana, without a doubt, is today also an instrument of the ideologues of the American extreme right. That is why it lends itself to the senators in that movement, who are very apt at manipulating ideologues, to also use it to spread their lies and propaganda.
Senator Kennedy, who has nothing to do with the illustrious family of Massachusetts, unlike the other Kennedys, this one from Louisiana is not famous for advancing contemporary ideas of government, but for purposely misrepresenting facts, data and dates to help between other characters and causes to Donald Trump. This Kennedy is also famous for justifying Vladimir Putin, for attacking Hillary Clinton and now also for advocating that US troops enter Mexico to end the drug cartels.
In the senator’s mind, as well as in the minds of his main handlers, Republican Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Tom Cotton of Arkansas, this entire episode of military action in Mexico must have the form of a Hollywood movie, with actions heroics of the Marines, and with American soldiers killing “Bad Hombres” with pistols and rifles that never run out of bullets.
Real life is not like that.
The lower house has already discussed designating Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations
Last Thursday, other members of Congress less blinded by fantasy already discussed it in Washington. Do you know what conclusion they reached? That military actions such as those advocated by Senator Kennedy are fantasy and therefore not only inoperable, but worse as a remedy than the disease itself. Congressmen faced with reality had to remove that possibility from their legislation.
It is true: in Mexico we have a serious drug trafficking problem
But the state of Louisiana that Neely Kennedy represents in the US Senate in Washington has it, too. According to state and federal government reports in Washington, Louisiana has one of the highest rates of addiction to illegal drugs in the entire United States. Almost 11 percent of its citizens are addicted to hard drugs.
Fentanyl, heroin and cocaine find their way into Louisiana from cartel distribution bases in Houston, Texas transported by local gangs and gangsters, but that’s not all. The other drugs consumed locally are methamphetamines and these are manufactured locally. Surprise, surprise!… The state of Louisiana is a leader in methamphetamine production.
Reading the above, it doesn’t strike you that the state of Louisiana needs legislation work. Put more simply, Louisiana badly needs new laws. But John Neely Kennedy, for going around advocating the sending of soldiers to Mexico, has forgotten to change the laws of his state. And in that sense, you see, these laws need profound changes.
Lawyers advertise in Louisiana promising to rig its laws
Several attorneys in the US state of Louisiana advertise by telling potential clients that they know how to manipulate state drug laws. The ads say state law allows you to prove in court:
- That his clients did not know there were drugs in the vehicle they were driving when they were arrested
- And that the laws of the state of Louisiana also make it possible to prove that even with drugs in the vehicle, the defendant(s) had no intention of distributing them.
Interesting isn’t it?
In Mexico we not only have very serious problems of manufacturing, trafficking and distribution of illegal drugs, we have very serious problems of poverty. But Louisiana has those same problems.
Again, interesting isn’t it?
Louisiana poverty
The state of Louisiana is the second among the 50 states in the American Union with the highest levels of poverty and is also the second with the highest child poverty.
But the senator nicknamed “Useful Idiot” does not seem to be aware of the above because he has never proposed legislation to remedy any of these ills.
What Kennedy has made very clear is his priority as a federal senator in Washington, in a campaign email the senator wrote:
“My top priority is to make sure I protect conservative values and isolate them from the socialist left!”
Perhaps that is why on Thursday, September 15, 2022, John Maxwell Hamilton, a renowned author and journalist, wrote in the British digital newspaper “The Independent”.
“Louisiana Senator John Kennedy, you suck.”
And Hamilton goes on to say in his article, “In my more than fifty years as a journalist I have never written such a crazy sentence. I don’t like to do it now. But he describes the senator from Louisiana in the same terms that he uses to describe everything.” When Kennedy doesn’t like something he says he sucks.
Also, on July 18, 2021, the digitally distributed Reveille magazine published a headline that read throughout the publication:
“John Kennedy, you should not be re-elected to the United States Senate.”
In her editorial, Claire Sullivan, a then-18-year-old student in an opinion letter wrote; (…) “during his brief time in Washington, DC as a Republican and his long career in Baton Rouge as a Democrat, Kennedy has shown that he does not represent the best interests of Louisiana residents.”
It’s clear that this Kennedy from Louisiana hasn’t fooled many people who see his claims as a fighter for the common people as part of a calculated facade, and that should come as no surprise to anyone.
If you examine where the funds for his political campaigns came from, you will clearly see that 77.15% of that money came from the big capitals of his state. 13.01% was from collections from various Political Action Committees, and tens of thousands of dollars from many lobbyists representing law firms, real estate firms and, above all, oil and gas companies.
Of all, however, nothing exemplifies the personality of the senator from Louisiana better than his devotion to former President Donald Trump. Kennedy was one of 10 Republican senators who signed a manifesto declaring their intention to vote against certifying the 2020 presidential election, citing unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud.
Kennedy affirms; without the US Mexicans would be eating cat food.
Senator Kennedy has one of the loosest tongues in Washington, where loose tongue is a sophisticated sport. The problem with this gentleman is that there is no sophistication in what he says– just poison. So last week he told the Senate that without trade with the United States, Mexicans would be feeding on cat food in some backyard.
The senator, as he is never up to date with what is happening, is unaware that Mexico is the second largest trading partner of the state of Louisiana, that 70,000 jobs in Louisiana depend on that trade with Mexico continuing. He also seems to be unaware that the trade between his state and our country is greater than the total trade between New Zealand and the United States.
As a final point, it must be said that we would be deceiving ourselves if we thought that John Neely Kennedy is a jerk. No, he is not. It is something more dangerous, it is a political instrument capable of creating conflicts for which he will never take responsibility. It is exactly what those who have known him and have analyzed him say.
A useful idiot.
